After the Battle / The End of the War
by Jaya
Summary: After the final battle.


Title: After the Battle / The End of the War (1/1)   
Working Title: finalbattle  
Author and vB Username: Jaya   
Distribution: ask and I will let you...maybe   
Rating: PG   
Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and   
owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to   
Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros.,   
Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is   
intended. "The Love Thieves" belongs to Depeche Mode.  
Feedback: is the foundation of my universe.   
At: jacey111@yahoo.com   
Beta'd by: Jeanna (Childlike Empress). Tell her she's wonderful.  
Summary: After the final battle.  
Ships: Draco/Hermione.  
Character(s): Draco and Hermione.  
Archived at: FF.net, the Dark Arts; Fiction alley  
Note: This is angst. It involves the mention of character death. If mention   
of this makes you uncomfortable, please go read something else. I also know   
that this is rather OOC, but remember, it's been traumatic.  
Started/Finished: 12th April 2002 / 17 April 2002  
Dedication: To all the people, whom, like me belive that a Draco/Hermione   
relationship IS possible in the books.  
This fanfiction is a work by me. Anyone who takes my work without asking, or   
claiming it as their own will be in a lot of trouble.  
  
*****************************  
After the Battle / The End of the War   
*****************************  
  
She shivered, drawing her cloak closer around her.  
  
When had it all gone wrong? They were all so excited at Christmas. There   
had been talking, laughing... everyone had been so happy.. So, what   
had happened? Why could she not remember? What didn't she want to remember?  
  
Her hair tangled in the sharp breeze as she reached the top of the hill.  
  
"Oh my God." she whispered as she looked over the devastation. The bodies had  
not yet been buried. The corpses were ghastly in their contorted and   
disturbed shapes.  
  
It all came flooding back.  
  
Was she the only one left?  
  
Seeing a flash of red at the edge of her vision, she ran forward. Her hand   
rose up to her mouth and she swallowed convulsively. Oh lord, it was Harry!   
Poor, brave Harry James Potter. Killed by an archer with a crossbow of all   
things. A crossbow!  
  
She pulled a discarded cloak over Harry's dead and staring face.  
  
She had to say something, anything!  
  
She opened her mouth, and at first nothing came out.  
  
Trying again, she managed.  
  
"We'll meet again, don't know where,   
Don't know when,  
But I know we'll meet again,  
Some Sunny day."  
  
She didn't know where it came from, but it was really nice, pretty, and   
somehow fitting.  
  
What was that?! Was it looters? Body scavengers, there to rob or desecrate   
the dead?  
  
*  
  
He also looked out across the bloody battleground. The difference being, he   
remembered, and had always remembered exactly what had happened on that sunny  
April afternoon.  
  
Most of the bodies had been destroyed beyond recognition.  
  
It had been a sunny day when the armies of the Light and the Dark had faced  
off against each other.  
  
Peter Pettigrew had been the first to fall. Not that grat a loss. Pettigrew   
was an incompetent.  
  
Years spent in the company of Potter's best friend, and he hadn't done   
anything.  
  
After that, people began to drop like flies on both sides. Weasley was dead.  
Potter had fallen to a crossbow bolt. It was pitiful, really. Cowardly. They   
were wizards, not medival Muggles!  
  
*  
  
The wind wafted a twist of song to him.  
  
"We'll meet again, don't know where,   
Don't know when,  
But I know we'll meet again,  
Some Sunny day."  
  
Someone was alive down there! Grimly he set his jaw and began to descend the   
hill.  
  
They would regret it if they did not have a good reason for being there.  
  
*  
  
She huddled in her cloak, trying not to scream as the footsteps crunched   
every so often. She'd lost her wand on the first day of the battle. This had   
relegated her to the Light camp.  
  
She cried out as she was pulled up, her hood ripped off.  
  
"Granger?" A startled voice asked.  
  
*  
  
He didn't know what to think, at first, when he saw the blue cloaked figure   
crouching among the dead.  
  
He pulled it up and ripped off the hood.   
  
"Granger?" He asked, surprised. Granger was still alive?  
  
"Malfoy?" Her voice echoed his.  
  
Draco Malfoy let go of her.  
  
"What are you doing here?" they asked each other at the same time.  
  
"I...." her voice gave. "I came to say goodbye to them." she said, pointing   
at the red covered form. "I'm leaving tomorrow. I can't take the silence."   
the girl's voice faded to a whisper.  
"We were supposed to graduate this year, Draco." she whispered brokenly.   
"Instead, everyone has died. There's nothing here for me, now."  
  
"You called me Draco." he replied.  
  
Hermione shrugged helplessly. "All those things seem so pointless now."  
  
"Potter is dead. As is Weasley, Dumbledore, Voldemort, my father, all the   
other death eaters. All of those who are not dead or dying have already   
left." Draco's voice was toneless.  
  
Tears spilled down Hermione's face.  
  
"This is good." Draco said, half to himself. "That way no one will see or   
despise me for doing this."  
  
Hermione found herself wrapped in a pair of warm hard arms.  
  
"Why?" her voice was muffled, but Draco heard it all the same. "Why do you   
care? You fought against us, and now everyone is dead." Her voice, even  
muffled, still exposed the loathing she felt towards the whole affair.  
  
Draco was silent for a long moment. "It just seems so.....pointless. Half of  
the reason I ever insulted you was to get under Potter and Weasley's skins.  
I always noticed that they always seemed so much more bothered than you did,  
when I called you names."   
  
He looked out across the ruins and the bodies, the destroyed, once beautiful  
scenery.  
"After the first few years, I didn't even mean them anymore. As to   
holding you when we are on opposite sides..." He took a deep breath, and she  
felt him roll his shoulders a little.   
  
"Voldemort is dead. He's gone for good. He turned himself into a Dragon, and   
someone lopped off his head before burning his body. I even think he had his   
essence trapped in a jar." His voice was vaguely amused at this turn of   
events.  
  
"So he's dead. I never needed, nor wanted a Lord. But Father..." Briefly he   
looked across to the stone figure of Lucius Malfoy, standing atop a hill.   
He'd been killed by Neville Longbottom, turned to stone. Who would have   
thought it? He took a deep breath. "Father always wanted me to follow in his  
footsteps, and I was too young, too..... stupid to see that I shouldn't, that  
it was a bad idea. And then I was here." His voice turned mocking. "First   
Lieutenant Draco Lucius Malfoy of the Dark Army. The youngest officer and   
commander in the entire company." His mouth twisted. "Some of the things I   
saw in the fighting....were monstrous."   
  
Draco slipped into thought, and Hermione did not ask what he had seen. She   
didn't want to know. Some of the casualties she had treated back in her own   
camp had been so terrible. One man had had his skin burnt off his face with   
a curse. And even after the skin and nerves underneath had been fixed, the  
man had just kept on screaming and screaming. She shuddered. She would never  
forget that man for the rest of her life.  
  
He was jolted out of his reverie by her voice. "I have the worst nightmares."   
She said quietly. "I had to keep out of the battles as I lost my wand on the   
first day. Some of the casualties.... they haunt me for not saving them, for   
having to turn them away, as there was so many. So many." Her voice dropped   
as she turned in his arms. Her eyes were red and puffy. "I couldn't save   
Ginny. She came in covered in blood and concussed. I did all I could, but she  
never woke up. I think the dream about her is the worst."  
  
Draco looked down at her. "Why?" He asked simply.  
  
Hermione turned her head to look up at him. "Because they aren't bad dreams.   
It's just Ginny as she was before this started. Talking, laughing. Dancing at  
the balls. And it's just so horrible, because." She wiped her eyes that had   
begun to blur again. "Because, she'll never do anything like that again, and   
it's all my fault."  
  
He sighed. "It's not your fault, Hermione. I doubt anyone could have saved   
her if she was that badly injured, and whether it was you, or someone who'd  
been a Mediwizard for the past ten years, no one saves every patient." He was  
about to add more, when movement caught on the edge of his vision. Carrion  
Crows. Vultures. They were coming to eat the dead. He looked back to the girl  
in his arms. She didn't need to see this, not in the state she was in. "We   
should probably go, it's getting dark, and it's dangerous here at night   
time." He didn't add that some of the magic had fused to create new and   
terrible monsters. He had the horrible suspicion that she already knew.  
  
Hermione allowed him to pull her to her feet as he stood himself.  
  
As they began to walk off, Hermione asked him one more question that had been  
bothering her. "I'm leaving tomorrow. Going somewhere new and different, to  
escape the memories. Do you..." She paused. "Do you want to come?"  
  
His face was blank as he hurried them away from the broken place that it was   
now, a magical wasteland, making it unsafe to do the simplest of spells   
there, let alone fly or apparate. Nothing would ever grow here again.  
  
He looked down at her before his words sealed his fate. "Yes."  
  
They continued their walk without speaking until they reached the border.   
Then they apparated away.  
  
And the rest, was silence.  
  
Fini  
  
*  
Oh the tears that you weep  
for the poor tortured souls  
who fall at your feet  
with their love begging bowls  
all the clerks and the tailors  
the sharks and the sailors  
all good at the trades  
but they'll always be failures  
Alms for the poor  
for the wretched disciples  
and the love that they swore  
with their hearts on the bible  
beseeching the honour  
to sit at your table  
and feast on your holiness  
as long as they're able  
Love needs its martyrs  
needs its sacrifices  
they live for your beauty  
and pay for their vices  
love will be the death of  
my lonely soul brothers  
but their spirit shall live on in  
the hearts of all lovers  
You're holding court  
with your lips and your smile  
your body's a halo  
their minds are on trial  
sure as adam is eve  
sure as jonah turned whaler  
they're crooked love thieves  
and you are their jailor  
Love needs its martyrs  
needs its sacrifices  
they live for your beauty  
and pay for their vices  
love will be the death of  
my lonely soul brothers  
but their spirit shall live on in  
the hearts of all lovers.  
  
***************************************************************  
Any thoughts or comments will be appreciated. Flames will be read and then  
laughed at. Possibly replied to if you are brave enough to review while   
logged in or leave an email address. Oh please be brave enough!  
  
J 


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